Shimen-Leib Freiman was born at Kovno in Lithuania,
then part of the Russian empire, in 1862. Like many other young Jewish
men of his generation, he received his call-up papers for compulsory
military service with the Russian army in 1879, but Freiman appears
to have chosen to flee to England instead.

After arriving in England, he anglicised his name to Symon Freeman,
married a woman from his native area in 1888 and worked as a picture
frame-maker, eventually settling at 108 Union Road, Rotherhithe, south-east
London. The 1901 Census shows him living at this address with his wife,
four daughters and two sons, and sufficiently prosperous to have a servant.

It was not until
1915 that Freeman applied to become a naturalised British citizen. The
sinking of the Lusitania in that year led to attacks on shops owned
by those with German-sounding names, including those of some Jews. In
addition, 'alien' immigrants (i.e. those from countries outside the British
empire) were not liable to conscription, introduced in 1916, and in some
areas, this generated resentment against young Jewish men who did not
seem to be 'doing their bit'. Against this background, Freeman would have
had good reason to demonstrate his loyalty: the Home Office file on his
application for naturalisation, which is held at The National Archives
(reference HO 144/1353/261046), states that Freeman wanted to become a
naturalised citizen because of his loyalty to the British empire and to
gain the right to vote. According to the police report, 'he speaks, reads
and writes the English language fairly well' and his sureties 'speak of
[him] as a respectable man and vouch for his loyalty to the British Empire'.

If Freeman and his family provide an example of a success story, many
other newcomers failed to prosper. Metropolitan Police records of 1901
reveal the case of the Levy family, living in a single room in Bethnal
Green, east London. The family consisted of Solomon Levy, a boot machiner,
his wife Freda, two daughters (Flora aged 12 and Rosa aged 2) and a
4 year old son. They had emigrated from Russia at the turn of the century.
His wife was said to be a prostitute, 'bringing strange men home, also
other girls of bad character all this takes place in one room which
is poor and filthy dirty'. The police response was to arrest the older
daughter and have her committed to an Industrial School (a young offenders'
institution) until she was 16 - thereby, it was hoped, keeping her away
from the influence of her mother.

Another very sad case, reported in The Times of 28 December
1901, concerns Esther and Marion Lalavensky, both aged six, who were
charged (together with their mother who had sent them out) with begging
in the streets of London. They were handed over to the Jewish Board
of Guardians who agreed to send all three back to Russia.